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First POST: Understanding the Data

Thursday, November 8 2012

Exclusively for Personal Democracy Plus subscribers: Did reporters find what might have been Mitt Romney's transition website? That and more in today's roundup of news about technology in politics from around the web.

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First POST: Understanding the Data

ICYMI: Micah L. Sifry writes that the best stories about social media during election season don't have much to do with the election: "In truth, the most interesting uses of social media in this election cycle were not directly focused on the presidential campaigns, but outside them. First with the Tea Party and Ron Paul movements, and then later with Occupy Wall Street, we saw that when ordinary Americans want to, they can use these tools to make powerful cause with each other."

Cryptography researcher Matt Blaze said he obtained the link to the mockup of what would have been Mitt Romney's transition website, which he posted online. While it was taken down shortly thereafter, Politicalwire and the Huffington Post were able to obtain screenshots.

The Guardian's Ed Pilkington suggested that the President's thanks to "the best campaign team and volunteers in the history of politics. The best. The best ever." was in effect his thanks to the campaign's data operation. Yesterday, Obama visited his Chicago headquarters to meet with campaign staff, and a photo showed him hugging Jim Messina.

Erik Wemple argued that CNN had the best coverage on election night, in large part due to its combination of superior technology with county-level reporting and anchor John King's demonstrated knowledge of voter data context.

According to Adweek, the Romney campaign did not make it into a list of the top 100 online advertisers by ad volume until October, and then was only at 100th place, compared with Obama, who was at fourth place. Early data for November showed Obama at Number 2 and Romney at Number 5.

In a post-mortem New York Times story on how Obama managed to win in spite of the first debate, Stephanie Cutter is quoted as saying, "We are getting bombed on Twitter," as Romney managed to score points.

Ars Technica noted that three lawmakers who had sponsored SOPA had been voted out.

Pew used Google Consumer Surveys to conduct a reaction survey after the election, in which 44 percent of respondents said they were happy about the outcome and 43 percent said they were unhappy about the outcome.

TechCrunch suggested that Facebook is not decreasing the reach of page posts in the newsfeed to benefit promoted posts.

The New York Times reported on how Silicon Valley objects to proposals that would regulate the privacy of children online. Rep. Ed Markey told the New York Times, "What children post online or search as part of their homework should not haunt them as they apply to colleges or for jobs."

The Hill reported that plans to further implement Do Not Track on the web seemed at a stand-still more than nine months after a high-profile White House event focusing on the issue.

French Prime Minister Francois Hollande was mocked for signing off a letter posted in a congratulatory Tweet to President Obama with the term "friendly," the literal translation of the French sign-off "Sympathique, François Hollande."

A judge has blocked California's new law that restricts online anonymity for sex offenders, which as approved by voters Tuesday, after an appeal supported by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

A draft report by the U.S.- China Economic and Security Review Commission suggested that China is "the most threatening actor in cyberspace," Bloomberg News reported.

Canadian officials are concerned that the poor quality of information routinely collected from airline passengers could hurt plans to compile a comprehensive database of everyone entering or leaving the continent.

Chicago's "black site"; The New York Times reports "little guys" like Tumblr and Reddit have won the fight for net neutrality but fails to mention Free Press or Demand Progress; Hillary Clinton fan products on Etsy to inspire campaign slogans?; and much, much more. GO